Virginia Fallon's hair
There is actually a fan page on Facebook for Virginia Fallon's hair. Demi Moore's hair styles were hilarious!
shareI can't imagine she got that hairstyle after her visit to Sharon Stone's salon. It seems like her hair grew about three feet before her final scene.
shareit was a switch.... piece of hair attached to a comb that then got put into your own hair. Generally you'd drop the switch off to your hairdressers a couple of days beforehand. They'd style it up and then you'd go along and have it amalgamated into your own hair. Just like extensions today but not so permanent.
shareThanks for the details. So how exactly did they attach, or "amalgamate," the new piece of hair to the old hair? Was it a chemical process with a type of glue, or was it melted, woven or braided into the old hair? And was it not as permanent as extensions because it didn't hold as long?
shareHair was attached to a comb ... sometimes to a small net and you'd secure either with bobby pins and then incorporate your own hair around it.
I had a friend at school whose mother had her hair like that every day (well not so big!) but those big, round 'hard' curls. She'd go to hairdresser as I said and have the piece styled and maybe get the hairdresser to put it on. But not always. You could just take the styled piece away and attch it yourself (I remember my mother doing this although she generally only did it for balls). You didn't need to have very long or thick hair. A style like Virginia's only required that you had enough hair to pull to back off your face and cover over the net or comb neatly. At night you'd take the piece off, pin it to the polystyrene head (to look after the curls)and then put it back on yourself in the morning tidying up your own hair around it.
This might sound bizarre but I did some googling and found these great words http://www.fiftiesweb.com/fashion/hair-setting.htm They don't relate to Virginia's hairstyle but they do give you some idea of how different hair used to be. I'm not that old but have slept in mega sized hair curlers and used cans and cans of hairspray in my time and thought nothing of it .... mind you I think I think attaching hair extensions with glue is bizarre.
Thanks so much for the details and that link. It is amazing to me what women (and some men) will do to their hair – or to give themselves the appearance of having more hair. Some of the fashions seems to precipitate hair loss – tight curlers, Aqua Net or sprays with a lot of alcohol, permanents and dyes.
I even read lately that some balding men will have a "hairline" tattooed over their scalp to cover up their hair loss (and presumably save on implants and toupees, which tend to look pretty fake anyway). As for me, I just shave my head regularly and wear a baseball cap. I'm not trying to fool anyone (or myself, for that matter). But I think the fact that I started losing my hair a lot faster than my father or older brother is the result of mousse, gels, perms and highlights – not a good idea for someone with fine hair.